Manufacturer News

We recently had the pleasure of visiting Simone Vingerhoets-Ziesmann, Executive Vice President of Artek Americas, at the Artek showroom in New York City. We learned about the core principals of the brand established by Alvar Aalto, co-founder of the Finnish modern furniture mainstay. He designed each piece of furniture with a specific function in mind. Each design was tailored to suit a particular function or to solve a specific problem.

We also learned about the company culture and how Alvar Aalto’s legacy continues to guide the company’s philosophy. The Artek Americas Showroom is bathed in Aalto’s signature soft, seamless, natural light. The showroom’s carefully curated selection of shapes, shades, materials and prints present a beautiful vision of object and purpose. Our visit was accompanied by a perfect playlist of favorites from Flight Facilities, Lana del Rey, the XX, and Lykke Li.

We founded Artek Americas in January 2010. Artek has had a fairly long history in this country. Alvar Aalto brought Artek to the U.S. in the 30s and 40s. He met people like Eames andformed U.S. partnerships for the company. A company called Artek-Pascoe was given the rights to manufacture Artek products. Artek had really interesting representatives, for example in Chicago Harry Weese started representing Artek and later became a famous architect. Christina Church and many other Artek representatives from the early years also became very famous. Artek has had many different distributors over the years, the most famous was probably ICF under Sam Friedman, who did a lot for the brand. After Friedman sold the company in 85/86, Artek had many different representatives – Knoll and Herman Miller for a while. In 2010, Artek decided that in order to bring the brand’s message across and set the distribution up properly, we needed to do it ourselves. And that’s when I came on board.

Stool 60 turned 80 last year and we are turning 80 next year. So the stool was actually designed before the Artek brand was formed. It was originally designed for the Municipal Library in Vyborg, Russia.

That stool was designed by Aalto?

Yes. The company was founded by Alvar Aalto and Aino, his first wife, and Nils-Gustav Hahl, who was the CFO of the company. (Hahl) unfortunately passed away early in his 40s in the second world war. Maire Eva Johanna Gullichsen (the daughter of the Ahlström family, one of Finland’s wealthiest and most influential families) secured the funding. She also had strong connections to the art world. Her connection with MoMA led to an Artek exhibition at the museum. She bought art from Dali when nobody knew him. That’s how our art collection started, by supporting emerging designers and artists. And that relationship to the art world has continued to this day.

Does Artek exhibit or curate that collection?

No, it’s in the office in Finland.Every room is decorated with original artwork. A small annual budget adds new work by contemporary artists. It supports emerging artists and promotes a pure interest in the arts.

Who is the buyer now?

It’s always the President of the company. We have a new president, Marianne Goebl. She was formerly the head of Design Miami, so it’s perfect. She started on July 1st. We have recently had big management changes, as we were just purchased by Vitra. They’ve separated the contract/office business from retail. Retail will be given a whole new face. Artek is under the Retail segment. Although we do have a contract line, because of our rich history we are a better fit for the Retail side.

What are some new and upcoming Artek that you can share with us?

What I can share is that with Marianne being on board, we will have a lot more new products and projects with new designers. In the past, a small part of Artek’s offerings were from new designers, while the largest part was always from the archives. We would purchase companies and portfolios when companies were available for sale. The Yrjö Kukkapuro line is one example of how Artek has acquired the rights and extended the legacy of a designer. Kukkapuro was in his eighties and the brand was only distributed in Finland and they couldn’t bring it to the next level. The next step of international distribution was missing. We also acquired such companies to help preserve these iconic designs. The recent appointment of Marianne Goebl as President has focused our efforts on innovative products and that is very exciting.

Will the Artek design team develop the new products internally, or will you reach out and collaborate with designers?

We would collaborate with designers. We also have a lot more sourcing capabilities through the Vitra marriage. Prior to our new relationship with Vitra, we were at a point where the company was growing, but we had this growing pain – where we didn’t have all the resources needed to support the growth in the way we would like to. So with Vitra on board there are many new opportunities. The Grcic chair is a good example of the strength of our partnership.

Grcic chair & details (Rival chair by Konstantin Grcic):

We had been working for 4 or 5 years with Konstantin Grcic, the designer, when we reached the point where we could manufacturer the wood, but the technology that enabled the chair to swivel was outside our expertise. Vitra came in and added the technology so that we could launch the product quickly and with the highest standards of quality. The product has been extremely well received. I think for 2 reasons – Konstantin Grcic is obviously a very famous up-and-coming young designer, but also I think it’s the perfect swivel chair that fits well with the Artek collection.

The exposed screws are Grcic’s homage to Aalto, because Aalto liked to keep screws exposed in his designs. So Grcic left the screws exposed, even though he could have easily hidden them. I think he applied this design detail in a really nice way. This is very important to us – that every new designer understands the philosophy of the company and shares it. We work with designers who produce pieces that are fresh and individual to that designer, while fitting comfortably within the Artek collection.

Grcic’s Rival chair – exposed screw:

What is the Artek Philosophy?

We’re always talking about ethics, aesthetics, ecology and economy. Sustainability is number 1 for us. We talk about the second cycle of products and reusing items or using a lacquer that has zero toxic VO2 content. The factory in Finland has a zero carbon footprint. We are reusing the wood chips [from production] to power the factory. Sustainability is very important to us. Conscious consumption is really thinking about what to purchase, purchasing something for life, something that lasts. You purchase the history of a product, the story of how it has been made, what it has been made for, why it is so comfortable. Aalto designed with a purpose. He was a product designer – he didn’t launch 20 chairs a year. He would design something specifically for a private home, for a university, for a library. There was a lot of thought that went into his products. He wanted people to be comfortable in each product’s intended function, whether they were in a sanitarium healing or at home reading.

He is gifted with light. If you get into his theories, you find that the combination of artificial and natural light is always done in a very elegant way. You almost have to look for the light source. He is so talented with lighting, it’s definitely one of his gifts. And then of course there was the influence of his wife. They worked very closely together. What is his, what is hers – when you have a couple it is difficult to pull it apart and say what is his and what is hers because they are a team. And later with his second wife, it was the same. They reintroduced some of the fabrics from Elissa Aalto. For instance the H55 fabric, that was her design.

H55 Tray (right) – print by Elissa Aalto:

Do you have a favorite product?

I like the Paimio chair that was designed for the Paimio Sanatorium. It’s definitely a favorite. A very iconic piece (Paimio chair – Armchair 41).

I also like the Grcic chair from the new collection – “Rival” task chairs:

A lot of products I like because there is a deeper meaning. Like the Shigeru Ban project. There was a company that produced decal stickers and they had all this waste. After they peeled the sticker back off, they wondered what else they could do with it. They started thinking about what to do with the waste. Their solution was to ground it up, mix it with glue and then injection mold it. They took this material and started to produce patio flooring. When we started working with Shigeru Ban, we suggested that he could actually make a piece of furniture out of this material – and that’s how the 10 units started. Later, we went on to build a pavilion from the material. So that’s what I find personally very interesting, that development – how we get to the final product and why.